Women and international assignments: The impact of supervisor-subordinate relationships

During the past two decades, more and more organizations have been going gl obal, and, as a result, more and more employees are being sent on internati onal assignments. For the most part, though, the percentage of females bein g sent on these assignments is much lower than the percentage of males. Sev eral recent studies have suggested that the supervisor-subordinate relation ship might be a critical determinant of who gets selected for expatriate as signments. To explore this issue in some detail, the leader-member exchange (LMX) model is used to examine the link between supervisor-subordinate rel ationships and selection for international assignments. Strategies that fem ale employees can use to improve their chances of being sent on internation al assignments are also suggested.